


What it is and where it stops, nobody knows

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [21]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:43:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not easy to awe River Song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What it is and where it stops, nobody knows

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: river/doctor with "that's a good look on you" (or something like that), please :)

It’s not easy to awe River Song.

She’s the second most well-traveled person in the universe, she has her own means of jumping through time-streams, and none of that is to mention her incredible penchant for popping up in the most fabulous and most dangerous moments in all of space and history. It’s easier when she’s young, but River’s upbringing was anything but conventional, and delight isn’t the sort of emotion she has much of.

He spends a lot of her early years trying to impress her. He makes her very happy, of course — he takes her to some places she’s thrilled by, some she’s excited about, some that she finds breathtakingly beautiful. But he’s still never seen her with that look he so adores in his companions — that brand-new-citizen-of-the-universe, not-even-in-my-wildest-dreams, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, speechless, breath-stealing amazement. He craves it desperately.

He takes her to palaces and natural wonders. Enormous waterfalls, cities constructed out of glass, galactic observatories, great peaks overlooking burning suns. They surf the flames of a supernova and spend an evening in a speakeasy that circles the singularity of a black hole. He takes her to the Library of Alexandria, to the Colossus, to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and still he at best he gets delighted laughter. 

The wonders of the universe are endless, and it’s not that River doesn’t appreciate what he shows her. He also doesn’t really blame her; she has the same sort of general zest and enthusiasm that he does when faced with something new and thrilling, but like him, she’s seen to much to be totally affected in the way that humans usually are. He runs out of ideas a few hundred years in. It’s something in the back of his mind, impressing his wife, but he stops focusing on it after a while. It takes a few hundred years more and a regeneration for him to finally get it right, but even his Twelfth self doesn’t immediately realize the potential he has before him — although that’s not entirely his fault. To his credit, he thought River was gone from him forever for a good long time before she started showing up again, older, more linear, mysterious about how she’d escaped the library, but he figured he’d find out soon enough.

Finally, after so, so many years, he has a plan.

He picked her up at her flat near Luna University, and tells her to get dressed for a night to remember. They flirt and kiss and touch and it takes her far longer to make her way to the wardrobe than it reasonably ought to, but he waits by the console, fiddling with controls and trying to ignore the way in which the hands of this new body sweat when he’s nervous.

"Are you alright, my love?" River asks, and he blinks up from where he’d been staring at the console.

She’s dressed in a long, deep blue dress the shimmers as she walks, hugging her curves and adding extra dimension with the way it shines. Her hair is long and loose — longer than he ever remembers it being — and he stutters for a minute before he finally finds a response.

"Fine, fine," he says, waving her off and starting to punch in the coordinates. "Excited, is all. You’ve never been here before."

"Ooh, how exciting," she purrs as she starts to approach him, but in three long strides he’s around the console and grabbing her shoulders, stopping her from going any further.

"No spoilers, dear," he says, tapping her nose with his finger. She smiles, and he gets momentarily distracted by the way her nose scrunches up, smoothing out the little lines with a quick press of his lips. "Don’t peek. I want it to be a surprise."

"If I’ve never been there," River says, "I’ll hardly recognize the coordinates."

"You will," says the Doctor, turning back to the console to finish the job.

"Somewhere I’ve not been yet I know where it is? I love a riddle," River says.

"I know," he says, giving her a wink.

Her answering smirk is filthy and not for the first time he’s reminded why he always takes her out late at night when there aren’t any companions around to tug on his coattails. When the TARDIS dematerializes, River reaches out to grab him, kissing him until they land; he wants to grab her and pull her out the door, but he needs a moment for his brain to solidify before he does anything. River’s always quicker than him, though — which he both hates and really, really loves — and walks past him toward the door.

"So," she says, "where’d you take me this —"

She stops abruptly as he sprints to her, throwing himself between her and the TARDIS door. She raises a brow.

"Seriously?"

"Shut up," he says, "it’s my surprise, I should be able to show it to you whenever I want."

"Don’t hold out on me, honey," she says, kissing his cheek, "turnabout’s a bitch."

He tries not to think about the last time he experienced that too much lest he get even more distracted, and shakes his head, reaching for the handle of the TARDIS.

"Close your eyes," he says.

River bites her lip and looks like she’s about to argue. He juts out his lower lip a bit in a pout and she heaves a put-upon sigh before closing her eyes. He reaches out to her, pulling her to him so that he can cover her eyes with one of his hands and open the door with the other.

They step out of the TARDIS, and he swallows, trying to ignore the way his hearts speed up in his chest. 

"If this is a kinky thing, Doctor, I’d much prefer silk to your hands," River says.

"It’s not kinky,” he says, “get out of the bloody gutter.”

"And leave you all alone?"

“River,” he says, “I’m trying to show you something special, could you just let me be in charge for twenty seconds?”

She shrugs as he maneuvers her slightly to his side, so that when he removes his hand, he’ll be able to see her face.

"Fine," she says, "but only twenty seconds."

"Smart-arse," he says.

She makes a motion as though zipping her lips, and he laughs, but it sounds nervous, even to his ears.

"We’re not on a volcano’s edge, are we?"

"What? Why would we —"

"Your hands are sweating," River says, "you haven’t taken us somewhere dangerous, have you?"

"No, I —"

"Nothing’s about to eat us?"

“No, it’s just —”

"And you’ve landed where you meant to," she says, "you’re not covering my eyes so I don’t realize we’re just in Cardiff or —"

“River —”

"We’re not going to freeze or burn to death or —"

“Fucking hell, just open your bloody eyes then!”

He yanks his hand back and River lays her eyes on Gallifrey for the first time. He watches her face, arms folded crossly over his chest, but his irritation instantly fades the minute he sees her light up. Her eyes are wide, her jaw drops, and he can see that’s she stopped breathing. It’s his home, of course, but Gallifrey is also in her blood; he’d had trouble living her, hated it most of the time, but he thinks he could love it, seeing it through her eyes.

"That’s a good look on you," he says, nudging her shoulder.

He has the great pleasure of seeing her stammer a few times before she can finally make a response.


End file.
